Road Warriors beware... Not ready for prime time for us business users...

Well, I have been playing with the droid for a week now and have made the sad decision to return it and go back to my Windows 6.1 phone ....

My primary reasons for returning it are because I am a serious road warrior with my phone and it is a critical business tool.

My Droid fails as a business tool in a couple areas (where my Samsung i760 does great)

1-teathering, got it to work but it is slow and a bit of a pain
2-Exchange outlook, email synces great, but the mail client is lacking functionality (accept invites, sort, folders, etc)
3- calander (corporate) very lacking in functionality
4- call signal strength, I loose calls easily, and people complain of poor voice quality on their end
5- lack of edit capability on docs, xls, other office stuff (some apps available for a price though)
6-very hard to use while driving as everything takes multiple taps, slides, or other visual type things to do. Not good in a state where cell phone usage has strict limitations
7-keyboard is a bit hard to use compared the great keyboard on the 760 (I could get used to it, and the landscape onscreen keyboard is actually very good)
8-Bluetooth functionality is very poor. No handsfree dial, voice command.

I think the phone is great for a casual user and the form factor is nice and it feels solid.

I know there are OS updates due out in mid Dec, and again in Jan. that will (may) address some of this, but since I only have a 30 day window to decide if I want to keep it, I have decided to stay with my bulky but tried and true i760 and re-evaluate the droid once the new OS patch is released.

Not trying to rain on any parades, just wanted to give my feedback to those who are looking for a business phone and are not able to compromise on the core phone and PIM functions we are accustomed to.

4- call signal strength, I loose calls easily, and people complain of poor voice quality on their end

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This sounds like two issues; one, the Verizon network in the area(s) you have tried it in may be the cause of issues with signal strength and dropped calls; two, I have seen a number of people complain of low voice quality, this seems to be a defect with the device it self and (again, from what I have heard) warrants replacement of your device under warranty/product defect.

5- lack of edit capability on docs, xls, other office stuff (some apps available for a price though)

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I have yet to see any smartphone/PDA that has any sort of truly native support for editing MS Office files at no cost. On some Palm devices a basic or trial version of Documents-To-Go was preinstalled but the actual price of this software was simply built into the price of the device. This same software is available for Palm, Blackberry and Android devices; in the case of the Droid (unlike Palm and Blackberry devices) it isn't preinstalled.

I wonder if you had a bad unit because of the "poor voice" quality you mentioned. Everyone I've talked to and asked (about a half dozen people) have said my calls are much clearer than they ever were before.

Do you have confirmation that on-device data encryption, mandatory PIN usage and remote wipe capability will be included in either the December or January OTA? These are critical, and mandatory, for my company. IPhone, BB and Palm Pre all support these data security issues that through Exchange ActiveSync. Without these we are not allowed Exchange connectivity.

I am only trying to give MY observations of the functionality provided currently as it is.

I'm glad your requiements are met by the Droid, and I am not trying to diss it. Just trying to let anybody who is on the fence about buying one know that it has some missing features that many of the business focused phones that use the other OS's have as standard features and if you require those features, this phone may have issues/compromises for you...

There are a few fixes that need to be done on the business side of things for alot of the corporate people. But most should be in the OTA on dec.11th. Those that aren't will be in the next one.

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You've obviously did not come from a blackberry. You go around saying this dec 11th update is going to fix everything. Expect there to be problems. Expect things to not get fixed. Hope for it, but do not say it is true when no one knows for sure what the final product really will be.

There are a few fixes that need to be done on the business side of things for alot of the corporate people. But most should be in the OTA on dec.11th. Those that aren't will be in the next one.

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You've obviously did not come from a blackberry. You go around saying this dec 11th update is going to fix everything. Expect there to be problems. Expect things to not get fixed. Hope for it, but do not say it is true when no one knows for sure what the final product really will be.

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Actually, coming as a Blackberry user (Namely the Storm), I don't believe the OTA will fix everything, as the Blackberry Storm also suffered some issues as well, mostly with user interaction and performance overall and still does.

To be fair, yes, the Droid will not be a harden 100% Corporate phone, although given how it was designed, its general aim is not 100% Corporate. The iPhone incorporated the Corporate side as an after thought as well, but given the nature of Apple, it has a much stronger basis to try and do majority corporate level work.

When you look also at the fact that Google's Sync doesn't seem to do much for Outlook as far as beyond the Calendar Sync, I believe the mainstay focus hasn't been on Exchange or MS Exchange level focus, so there isn't as high of a level.

Apple has it because they are shooting for Corporate and Home use, although some of their Mac in MSAD environment documentation is highly lack luster from what I have tried, the fact is that most of it is there for their focus.

Google will probably need a push from people about more interoperability to put more into it, and that is where the users are important to pass this information along.

As a former road hog who spent 150 days a year in airports and hotels, I can sympathize with your issues. You need your phone to be an extension of your office, not a tool that needs a lot of tweaking to do what you need it to do.

Like you, I'm a geek but now have time and insight to play with such new platforms to make them work for me. If I were still doing what you are doing, I'm confident I'd stay with my ****berry Storm and hang on to my email, calendar, contact and connectivity functionality.

HOWEVER, for business users who aren't hardcore road warriors, this phone has the potential to be an amazingly effective and efficient platform to manage our businesses. Like all things new, they're difficult before they are easy.

Good luck with your old platform, and I hope you make it back around in a few months to check out the new features and benefits. It'll take time to get it right, but when it is, it'll be a great thing.

In the meantime, if you haven't read the book "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" by Gladstone, you should pick it up. Great leadership read.

Heh - One more thing to add... I am currently using both Droid and BB Storm. The BB storm is the company provided phone. The Droid is my personal phone which I did tie into my company's Exchange server.

Believe me, I'm checking out all the information here and I would still use the BB Storm mostly for work reasons, but the Droid can do some of the basic stuff I do on the BB.

While I can't do the whole Accept meetings or look up the Global Address List to send e-mails like I could with the BB, the BB doesn't handle internet general stuff as nicely, nor likes some of my other sorts of mail (General the HTML stuff) that I sometimes get.

Anyways this isn't a love it or leave it post I am making. Just know that I do agree it isn't the 'best' Business phone, don't think it was quite meant to be persay, but trying to hit the same niche that the iPhone did, which is mostly are the basic endusers and work its way up.

There are a few fixes that need to be done on the business side of things for alot of the corporate people. But most should be in the OTA on dec.11th. Those that aren't will be in the next one.

Click to expand...

You've obviously did not come from a blackberry. You go around saying this dec 11th update is going to fix everything. Expect there to be problems. Expect things to not get fixed. Hope for it, but do not say it is true when no one knows for sure what the final product really will be.

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Sorry in this ONE posting i said that it will be in the next one, if not in the dec 11th one. But yes they have already stated some of the stuff that will be coming out on that update. And alot of what people keep B**ching about.. calendar invites, not syncing with exchange that has pin/remote wipe, calendar not syncing... Were all slated for the dec 11 update.

Heh - One more thing to add... I am currently using both Droid and BB Storm. The BB storm is the company provided phone. The Droid is my personal phone which I did tie into my company's Exchange server.

Believe me, I'm checking out all the information here and I would still use the BB Storm mostly for work reasons, but the Droid can do some of the basic stuff I do on the BB.

While I can't do the whole Accept meetings or look up the Global Address List to send e-mails like I could with the BB, the BB doesn't handle internet general stuff as nicely, nor likes some of my other sorts of mail (General the HTML stuff) that I sometimes get.

Anyways this isn't a love it or leave it post I am making. Just know that I do agree it isn't the 'best' Business phone, don't think it was quite meant to be persay, but trying to hit the same niche that the iPhone did, which is mostly are the basic endusers and work its way up.

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I'm an early/bleeding-edge Droid user at a large midwestern university. The vast majority of exec-level users have switched to the iPhone, but only after AT&T added better coverage on campus. I'm a 80/20 business/personal user. Moving from BB. Most folks need solid Exchange interface, easy calendar and the current breaker for me and a lot of others, access to campus voice mail. I've posted about the .wav file not being supported.

The accept meeting issue is minor for me - you just need to do the extra step of opening the calendar and mavigating to the proposed meeting. But hope that one gets fixed too.

The IT team is all about the iPhone and I'm logging issues and winners, so I'm following this closely. I really want to Droid to be be as good as the iPhone. It doesn't have to be better.

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